Techno-Economic, Sustainability & Environmental Impact Diagnosis (TESED) Framework

Nowadays, companies are looking for new sustainable design alternatives that improve their original processes. To assess the best design alternative, economic aspects have been the preferred indicators. However, environmental and social concerns should also be included in the decision process so that truly sustainable design alternatives can be found. This work proposes a framework, called 'Techno-Economic Sustainability Environmental Impact Diagnosis' (TESED) that allows users to assess chemical/biochemical processes in a product oriented analysis. TESED is a systematic and generic approach that can be applied to any product/processes combination. Bioethanol production was the case-study selected to highlight the TESED framework. Two production processes using two different feedstocks, hardwood chips and cassava rhizome, have been analysed.